Related papers: Towards Terrain-Aware Safe Locomotion for Quadrupe…
We present a footstep planning policy for quadrupedal locomotion that is able to directly take into consideration a-priori safety information in its decisions. At its core, a learning process analyzes terrain patches, classifying each…
Legged robots that can operate autonomously in remote and hazardous environments will greatly increase opportunities for exploration into under-explored areas. Exteroceptive perception is crucial for fast and energy-efficient locomotion:…
(Simplified Abstract) To accomplish breakthroughs in dynamic whole-body locomotion, legged robots have to be terrain aware. Terrain-Aware Locomotion (TAL) implies that the robot can perceive the terrain with its sensors, and can take…
Quadrupedal robots resemble the physical ability of legged animals to walk through unstructured terrains. However, designing a controller for quadrupedal robots poses a significant challenge due to their functional complexity and requires…
Legged robots can sense terrain through force interactions during locomotion, offering more reliable traversability estimates than remote sensing and serving as scouts for guiding wheeled rovers in challenging environments. However, even…
Continuous robot operation in extreme scenarios such as underground mines or sewers is difficult because exteroceptive sensors may fail due to fog, darkness, dirt or malfunction. So as to enable autonomous navigation in these kinds of…
Dynamic locomotion in rough terrain requires accurate foot placement, collision avoidance, and planning of the underactuated dynamics of the system. Reliably optimizing for such motions and interactions in the presence of imperfect and…
This paper presents a safety-critical locomotion control framework for quadrupedal robots. Our goal is to enable quadrupedal robots to safely navigate in cluttered environments. To tackle this, we introduce exponential Discrete Control…
Inspired by human behavior when traveling over unknown terrain, this study proposes the use of probing strategies and integrates them into a traversability analysis framework to address safe navigation on unknown rough terrain. Our…
Legged locomotion benefits from embodied sensing, where perception emerges from the physical interaction between body and environment. We present a soft-surfaced, vision-based tactile foot sensor that endows a bipedal robot with a skin-like…
Robots that traverse natural terrain must interpret contact forces generated under highly dynamic conditions. However, most terrain characterization approaches rely on quasi-static assumptions that neglect velocity- and…
Legged robots can traverse a wide variety of terrains, some of which may be challenging for wheeled robots, such as stairs or highly uneven surfaces. However, quadruped robots face stability challenges on slippery surfaces. This can be…
Quadrupedal robots hold promising potential for applications in navigating cluttered environments with resilience akin to their animal counterparts. However, their floating base configuration makes them vulnerable to real-world…
Terrain-aware perception holds the potential to improve the robustness and accuracy of autonomous robot navigation in the wilds, thereby facilitating effective off-road traversals. However, the lack of multi-modal perception across various…
In-situ robotic exploration is an important tool for advancing knowledge of geological processes that describe the Earth and other Planetary bodies. To inform and enhance operations for these roving laboratories, it is imperative to…
This work developed a learning framework for perceptive legged locomotion that combines visual feedback, proprioceptive information, and active gait regulation of foot-ground contacts. The perception requires only one forward-facing camera…
Accurate soil mapping is critical for a highly-automated agricultural vehicle to successfully accomplish important tasks including seeding, ploughing, fertilising and controlled traffic, with limited human supervision, ensuring at the same…
This extended abstract provides a short introduction on our recently developed perception-based controller for quadrupedal locomotion. Compared to our previous approach based on Visual Foothold Adaptation (VFA) and Model Predictive Control…
Legged robots with egocentric forward-facing depth cameras can couple exteroception and proprioception to achieve robust forward agility on complex terrain. When these robots walk backward, the forward-only field of view provides no…
Robust closed-loop locomotion remains challenging for soft quadruped robots due to high-dimensional dynamics, actuator hysteresis, and difficult-to-model contact interactions, while conventional proprioception provides limited information…